The present invention relates generally to a door with a sliding door leaf and an elevator installation with such a door.
Doors with sliding door leaves, which are also termed sliding doors, have numerous advantages; in particular, their need for space relative to the need for space of swinging doors is comparatively small, since the opening door leaves slide parallel to and in the immediate vicinity of the wall and thus do not demand any usable space in the region of the door opening.
The disadvantages of such doors with sliding door leaves reside particularly in that: the door leaves are not, or not sufficiently, guided and produce noises during their sliding, which can frequently be heard in remote areas of the building; the guide elements which serve for guidance of the door leaves during sliding thereof are subject to considerable wear; and the door leaves in closed state form only an unsealed or poorly sealed separation of the spaces connected by the door opening. This last-mentioned disadvantage is significant particularly in the case of shaft doors of elevator installations, since due to air currents, which are inevitable in an elevator shaft, a perceptible draft associated with a disturbing development of noise can be caused, for example, by the generally known “chimney effect” or by movements of an elevator car during travel through the shaft.
The mentioned disadvantages make themselves particularly noticeable in the case of a sliding door of the type shown in the U.S. Pat. No. 4,781,270 that is constructed for use in elevator installations and the door leaves of which are guided by means of slide elements, which elements are fastened to the door leaves, in guide grooves of a door threshold profile member. On sliding of such a door leaf the slide elements are exposed to a high level of sliding friction and accordingly are movable in a manner susceptible to wear and relatively noisily. Limits are imposed on optimization of the friction conditions by suitable material selection for the components of the door subject to friction, if only because of an inevitable contamination of the guide grooves in the door threshold profile member. Moreover, the slide elements have to be guided with a minimum amount of play in order to prevent jamming of the door leaf This is one cause of the mentioned sealing problems.